


You Left Your Mark in Reminding Me

by Hopestill



Series: A Character Study in Red [1]
Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Angst, Nightmares, Other, i based this fanfic entirely off of a throwaway line takumi said in the conquest route, is it canon? who knows i haven't beaten conquest yet lol, most of the violence is mental but i'm playing it safe with the warnings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-06
Updated: 2018-11-06
Packaged: 2019-08-19 22:35:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16543595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hopestill/pseuds/Hopestill
Summary: Takumi doesn't dare tell anyone about his nightmares.





	You Left Your Mark in Reminding Me

**Author's Note:**

> This fanfic was a culmination of trying to get back into writing and figuring out how to deal with the stress of college, under the overall banner of doing a character study. Takumi is best boy and he really doesn't deserve this, but he's also a lot of fun to write. Let me know if there's anything I can improve on, I want to do more of these (and will probably do more lol)

Takumi never told anyone about his dreams.

He would much rather use his annoyance as a barrier, to not let his siblings and retainers know that anything’s going wrong. Let them think that he’s just being unusually prickly on the nights that he gets barely any sleep. It’s much better than letting them know what’s going on, he told himself. He’s certain that at least his retainers know what’s going on - Oboro gives him extra tea on the mornings where he wakes up drowning in his own sweat, heart pounding in his chest, eyes darting across the room looking for anything to give him a grasp back on reality other than the constant ache pressing down on his head.

He knows that there are just some nights where he wakes up screaming for his family, and on those days he hopes that simply glaring hard enough at the poor soul concerned for him would silence any questions. He’s always had nightmares, his excuse is, the stress of the war is just exacerbating them - that would usually work on people who weren’t intimidated by his glares and curt answers. 

It was much safer to put on an act. Especially with how real his dreams felt.

The dreams always began the same way. He woke up in a black expanse, wearing his clothes instead of his night robe, weapon in hand, anxiety heightened for no apparent reason. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest, a fight-or-flight response triggered in his mind. It wasn’t that the darkness in this dream was the absence of any tangible light; rather, the darkness just existed unto itself. He took a deep breath, feeling the stale air fill his lungs, and started to walk. No matter which way he walked, heels clicking on what must have been a tile floor, the same void surrounded him. 

The steady pain in his head, the same dull thud and ringing he trained himself to ignore as he went about his day, grew. It felt stronger, pressed down heavier on his mind with each step. A faint, static hum oozed out from the darkness. The noise felt like it was crawling up his body, making his hairs stand on end and sending shivers coursing through him. The ringing in his head harmonized with the darkness’ hum, drowning out the mantra of _this is just a dream, Takumi_ that his inner monologue was chanting breathlessly. He bit his lip and kept walking. 

He could feel the pressure building up inside his head - it almost felt like his mind was getting crowded out, pushed out, that something wanted Takumi gone from himself. He pressed his fingers to his temples, but pulled them away before he could begin massaging them, spitting out a curse. He then tilted his head to the side, feeling a pop in his neck. Another curse crawled its way from his lips; none of the techniques Sakura taught him were working on this headache. Forcing his fears back down his throat, he pressed onward, towards nothing in particular except the faint hope of a miracle. 

At some point in the dream, he would misstep and fall to one knee, and that’s when the noise around him would reach cacophonous levels. If he tried to plug his ears, the noise would simply become sharper, more violent, as if it was trying to carve into him, and if he tried to stand up the pressure around him would force him back down to his knees. He could feel tears pricking the edges of his eyes, gripping onto his bow as if it was his one anchor outside of the darkness and the noise. He could barely stand living with the constant humming and aching, but now that it was this painful he simply prayed to wake up, to have it go back to being simply annoying. 

Takumi heard a voice behind him. The clear, gentle voice that called out to him was one he was quite familiar with. His sister, Corrin, repeated his name, brimming with kindness and joy. Through everything, he could picture her wide smile, how she would run up to him, cape fluttering out behind her. He could almost laugh. His prayer had been answered, the single miracle had arrived. Wiping the tears from his eyes, he forced himself up, ignoring the pressure inside his head, and turned around. “Corrin-”

Corrin wasn’t there. Takumi wasn’t sure what it was. It wasn’t anything that his brain couldn’t quite comprehend. Whatever it was, it walked like Corrin, sounded like Corrin, but the best he could make out was some sort of static, amorphous blob that was only vaguely shaped like his sister. Staring too deeply into this shape made his knees buckle under the pressure, pain, and cacophony surrounding him. 

Sweat dripped down his legs and clung to the palms of his hands. Any attempt to run away, to try to escape this shape sent jolts of pain coursing through his body, through his chest and down his arms and legs. He bit his lip hard enough to draw blood, watching it drip down his chin as he noticed he could raise his arms without causing any pain. Slowly, grip tight on the bow, he raised it aloft, eyes widening as he heard Corrin’s voice once more.

“What’s the matter, Takumi? Don’t you recognize your sister?” Her voice dropped an octave, the joy swallowed up in bitterness. “Or am I simply a monster to you now?”

“You abandoned your family... You abandoned me, and everyone in Hoshido!” Takumi cried out. 

“I’m pursuing what I believe to be the path to peace. You could have helped me - you could have joined, or talked to Ryoma, or at the very least still treated me like family. Instead, you turned your back on me, and refuse to acknowledge our different perspectives.” A giggle punctuated the pause. “I think, Takumi, that you do view me as a monster. Because you simply want someone to blame.”

“Shut up!” Takumi shouted, the tears in his eyes flowing down his cheeks. “Shut up and leave me alone!”

“I can’t do that, Takumi. Since you couldn’t help me in the beginning, well... You know what you need to do, you just can’t.” 

Takumi forced his eyes open as he let an arrow fly from his bow, striking the static that Corrin’s voice projected from. The constant noise surrounding him cut out suddenly, and the pressure on him and inside his mind ceased. For once, in this forsaken dream, Takumi could breathe normally again. 

He closed his eyes and sighed, listening to how his breath passed through his lips. The stillness of his dream used to be oppressive, but after having shot... something that sounded just like his sister, it was welcome. He needed the time to recollect his thoughts. They all kept converging to the same idea, the same lingering thought that bubbled up to the surface a bit more after each dream. He pushed it down, deep down inside of him; it wasn’t something anyone needed to know had even crossed his mind. He couldn’t inflict that upon any of his friends, or his family-

“Takumi.”

He opened his eyes, and immediately felt bile burning up his throat and a pit in his stomach. He saw Corrin and the rest of his family, their red and white clothes stained with their own blood. Ugly red gashes and cuts disfigured their faces and bodies. His bow clattered to the floor as he brought his shivering hands up to his mouth, tingling numbness overwhelming any other feelings he might have had. 

“Either you kill me, Takumi, and free yourself from this pain...” He heard Corrin’s voice cut through the silence. “Or you’ll be the one ultimately responsible for this. You could have stopped me.”

The void surrounding Takumi started flowing, pouring onto the floor he was kneeling on. Dripping onto him, over him, around him was the black ichor that encompassed the entire dream. He threw up the bile in his throat, tears pouring down his face, gasping for air as the ichor twisted itself along his body, crawling up his sleeves and oozing against his bare skin. It burned, it scratched, and worst of all, it felt strangely comforting. Listening to Corrin, giving up on fighting this... it felt right. He reached out, one hand breaking free from the darkness, and grasped for his bow - his fingers traced the curled design on the edges, but failed to grip onto it, as he felt the ichor flow down his mouth and ears, filling him up with something that was decidedly not himself. “Please-” 

His eyes opened and he took a deep breath, as if he had to drink in all of the air possible, that he was never going to breathe again. He exhaled, shaking as he watched his chest stutter with his breathing, but go down nonetheless. He watched his chest rise, then fall, then rise, then fall, mentally alternating between counting to five and counting to seven - a breathing exercise he learned to calm himself in archery training. The darkness around him was a deep blue, and he could make out his bow leaning against the corner of the room. It must have been nighttime, but not too late, judging by the hue of the night sky peaking through an open window. 

Sitting up, he felt the loose cloth slip off his shoulders, and his hair pool around him. He felt the pressure build in his head again, wincing as he glanced about him. He was back in his room of the fort, on a border town between Nohr and Hoshido. He pulled his knees close to his chest and rest his forehead atop them, listening for his own soft breathing. As much as he didn’t want to admit it to himself, to anyone, he knew what he had to do.

He had to kill Corrin tonight. It was the only way to stop these dreams. 

It was the only way to stop the pain.


End file.
